Author: Badalian Vardan

IT IS ENVISAGED RECONSTRUCTING TBILISI-YEREVAN RAILWAY

NOYAN TAPAN
NOVEMBER 18, 2009
YEREVAN

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 18, NOYAN TAPAN. The European Union has financed
an important project, whose purpose is to assess the possibility of
reconstructing Tbilisi-Yerevan railway within the framework of TRACECA
(Transport Corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia) Program.

The EU Armenia Office reports that the project on reconstruction of
Tbilisi-Yerevan railway aims to prepare a detailed assessment of the
perspective of repairing Tbilisi-Yerevan railway (also an alternative
railway between the indicated cities through the territory of
Azerbaijan), and this assessment should correspond to the international
standards for safe transportation of cargo and passengers.

The results of the possible reconstruction will be Armenia’s connection
to Batumi-Poti-Tbilisi TRACECA railway and a reduction in the passenger
transportation time, which is currently quite long due to speed limits
as a result of the unsatisfactory condition of railway lines. The
reconstruction will considerably improve the competitiveness of
the railway.

The main Tbilisi-Yerevan railway, which was launched in 1899 and
electrified in 1967, has a lot of problems related to its maintenance
and modernization and for that reason it cannot efficiently satisfy
the current and future transport needs. The alternative Yerevan-Tbilisi
railway, which passes through the territory of Azerbaijan, was launched
and electrified in 1964. However, in recent years only Yerevan-Dilijan
section of this railway has been operable.

After 12 months of its operation, the project has conducted three
main studies: examination of the possibility of reconstructing
Tbilisi-Yerevan railway; examination of the possibility of
reconstructing the Hrazdan-Ijevan section of the railway to Azerbaijan
(where traffic is partly blocked due to landslide); and examination of
the possibility of repairing the technical part of the main Georgian
railway.

Within the project, a preliminary assessment of the possibility of
opening a new Vanadzor-Fioletovo section was made, which would allow
reducing the current Tbilisi-Yerevan railway by 100 km.

PURCHASE AND SALE TRANSACTIONS OF 800 THOUSAND DOLLARS CARRIED OUT AT NASDAQ OEMEX ARMENIA OJSC ON NOVEMBER 17

NOYAN TAPAN
NOVEMBER 17, 2009
YEREVAN

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 17, NOYAN TAPAN. Purchase and sale transactions of
800 thousand dollars at the weighted average exchange rate of 387.25
drams per dollar were carried out at Nasdaq Oemex Armenia OJSC on
November 17. According to the press center of the Central Bank of
Armenia, the closing price made 387.25 drams.

RISE IN SALE PRICES OF SEVERAL MEDICINES RECORDED IN OCTOBER AND NOVEMBER

NOYAN TAPAN
NOVEMBER 17, 2009
YEREVAN

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 17, NOYAN TAPAN. A rise in the sale prices of several
medicines has been recorded as a result of the checks conducted by
the RA State Commission for the Protection of Economic Competition in
October-November of this year. According to the preliminary study of
the Commission’s experts, the behavior of the big economic entities
engaged in the import and sale on the markets of cardiovascular,
anti-virus and diabetic medicines may bear evidence of possible
violations of the legislation on competition. For that reason, at
the November 17 sitting, the Commission initiated legal proceedings
in the indicated markets.

During the proceedings, the compliance of the behavior of the
following entities with competition rules will be examined. These
economic entities are: Esculap LLC, Argo Pharm LLC, Asteria LLC,
Alpha Pharm CJSC, Natali Pharm LLC, Vaga Pharm LLC, Arpimed CJSC,
Arpharmatsia CJSC, Amikus LLC, Lagi LLC, Deghabaza Yerevan LLC,
Rus Pharm LLC, Richter Lambron LLC, Tonus Les LLC, Pharm Gohar LLC,
Asteria LLC, Pharm Trust LLC, and Orient Pharm LLC (these economic
entities are the biggest ones in the market). At the Commission’s
sitting, the economic entities were asked to provide information about
the components of the structure of the purchase prices of goods and
their sale prices, also the reasons for a change in prices. They were
also asked to present copies of the agreements and invoices.

The list of the medicines of social importance, whose prices have been
raised in an unfounded way (in the preliminary opinion of experts)
will be available on website.

ARMENIAN CHURCH TO BE BUILT ON JORDAN RIVERSIDE

/PanARMENIAN.Net/
16.11.2009 16:32 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ An Armenian Church will be built on Jordan
riverside. Archbishop Torkom Manoogian, the Armenian Patriarch of
Jerusalem, laid the cornerstone for new church, which will be named
St. Karapet Church.

ARMENIA MAY RECEIVE REMAINING IMF LOANS IN 2010 AND 2011

ARKA
Nov 12, 2009

YEREVAN, November 12, /ARKA/. IMF Resident Representative to Armenia,
Nienke Oomes, said today Armenia will get the remaining part of IMF
loans in 2010 and in the first half of 2011, given that it fulfils
all the assumed obligations.

In June, 2009 tThe Executive Board of the International Monetary
Fund completed the first review of Armenia’s economic performance
under a Stand-By Arrangement (SBA) and approved an increase in the
IMF’s financial support to an amount equivalent to SDR 533.6 million
(about US$822.7 million; or 580 percent of Armenia’s quota.

Speaking at a news conference today Nienke Oomes said among other
things, the government should improve its taxation legislation and
impose, particularly, a customary taxation regime for tobacco products
and petrol.

She said also Armenia’s next year budget deficit will make 5.8% of
the GDP (7.5% in 2009). At that, she said, the government will have
to gradually reduce the deficit level in the next years, because it
will have to repay its debts.

Regarding Armenia’s foreign debt, she said it gets critical when
the debt to GDP ratio exceeds 50 percent. Before the crisis this
ratio was 15%, now it has risen to 30%. She said the government has
accepted IMF’s conditions for implementation of actions which will
secure economic progress.

CLOSING CEREMONY OF THE NINTH INTERNATIONAL "ARMPROD EXPO 2009" TOOK PLACE

ARMENPRESS
Nov 13, 2009

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 13, ARMENPRESS: Closing ceremony of the ninth
international "ArmProd Expo 2009" took place today with the
participation of the Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, Agriculture
Minister Gerasim Alaverdyan. The exhibition was organized by the
"Agrobusiness Development Center", Armenian Agriculture and Foreign
Affairs Ministries, Yerevan municipality, Armenia’s Trade Industrial
Chamber.

The exhibition presented alcoholic drinks, juices, fruits, vegetables,
canned food, sweets, meat and milk products, dried fruit, coffee,
cigarettes, polygraph products. The president walked in all the
pavilions, got acquainted with the presented products.

The director of the "Agrobusiness Development Center" Armen Davtyan
told the reporters that all the developments in the food production
may be seen in this exhibition. As compared with the past year this
time more international companies presented their products. Overall 64
companies participated in the event of which 15 from Belarus, Austria,
Germany, Russia, England. More than 7000 people visited the exhibition.

"I can surely say that the exhibition served its purpose and best
food products have been presented. The most important thing is that
a number of cooperation agreements have been reached both among local
and international companies," A. Davtyan said.

WHAT IF…

news.am
Nov 11 2009
Armenia

Our counterparts in the Azerbaijani 1news.az website, and the member
of the Azerbaijani Parliament Aidiyn Mirzazade, who had an article
entitled "If Armenia had not seized Azerbaijan’s territories…" put on
the website, have "persuaded" us into giving some thought to history
in the Subjunctive. It is not a thing to be done, but the idea of
presenting the situation in the region "but for the Karabakh conflict"
appears to be quite a thrilling one.

Well, if ifs and ans…

Although the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was "an integral part" of the
disintegration processes in the post-Soviet area, and the exacerbation,
no doubt, played into the hands of both internal and external forces
seeking to cause a collapse of the USSR, decades of history actually
lay at the root of the confrontation.

Permanent violations of the native Armenians’ rights in the
Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region were getting graver, taking various
forms. Although Armenians formed the region’s authorities, official
Baku’s "threatening hand" had always been over their heads. After the
1953 "thaw", and after Heydar Aliyev, who has been declared "national
leader", came to power, Azerbaijan launched a consistent policy of
settling the Nagorno-Karabakh region with ethnic Azerbaijanis, which
was stepping up tension in the region. In one of his interviews with
Azerbaijani mass media (at a meeting with editors-in-chief of local
newspapers) Heydar Aliyev was clearly speaking of the measures to
increase the share of Azerbaijanis in the Nagorno-Karabakh population
by opening enterprises that had nothing in common with the region’s
economic set-up and supplying labor force from the other regions
of Azerbaijan.

The Armenian authorities, without informing — or with the tacit
consent of — the USSR Government, had to protect the Armenian
population in Nagorno-Karabakh. Particularly, in early 1970, on the
initiative of Karen Demirchyan, the then leader of Soviet Armenia,
the written-off equipment of the Yerevan TV center was delivered to
Stepanakert. That was the only opportunity for the Nagorno-Karabakh
Armenians to watch programs of the Armenian television. The Armenian
population was encouraged to send their children to Armenian schools,
while Shushi was turned into "a bulwark" of increasing Azeri population
in the region – Heydar Aliyev proved unable to "shoulder the burden"
of settling Stepanakert with Azerbaijanis. The causes of the full-scale
confrontation of 1988 can be listed without end… As an exception
to the rule, let us think about history in the Subjunctive.

What would have happened if the USSR had promptly responded to
the developments, and the Nagorno-Karabakh people’s legal right to
self-determination had evoked an adequate response in Azerbaijan?

– No Armenian pogroms in Sumgait on February 27-28 would have taken
place. For the first time in the Soviet Union’s history the madding
crowd was killing people because of their nationality;

– Armenian public would not have responded by flooding the streets
and demanding the protection of Armenians in the neighboring republic;

– The relations between the Armenian and Azerbaijani communities in
Nagorno-Karabakh would not have worsened;

– The uncontrollable confrontation between the two nations would not
have caused an explosive situation in Armenia and Azerbaijan;

– Larger-scale Armenian pogroms in Baku on January 13-19, 1990,
would not have taken place;

– Hundreds of thousands of Armenians would not have left their homes
to become refugees;

– Armenian volunteers would not have responded to Azerbaijan’s open
military aggression;

– In response to fierce shelling of the borderline settlements of
Armenia, as well as towns and villages of Nagorno-Karabakh, the
Armenian troops would not have established control over the seven
regions neighboring on Nagorno-Karabakh;

– Heydar Aliyev and his successor Ilham would not have to tell
Azerbaijanis tales about Armenians’ being "inhuman monsters", taking
advantage of the anti-Armenian propaganda to support the personality
cult of "Heydar-baba" and his son Ilham, which has been carried to
the point of sheer idiocy;

– In its "struggle" against the Armenian people’s ancient history,
the Azerbaijanis would not have developed an inferiority complex in
their search of "national identity…"

This list could be continued, but our sincere desire is that
the Azerbaijani authorities finally find a fair solution to the
Nagorno-Karabakh problem.

KARABAKH CHILDREN’S HOME REVEALS STRAINS OF LIFE
By Karine Ohanian in Stepanakert

Institute for War & Peace Reporting
Nov 7 2009
UK

Once an orphanage, the institution has evolved to care for the child
victims of a broken society.

The children’s home in Nagorny Karabakh is a happy place where the
children joke with visitors, but its existence reveals strains in
society 15 years after the tiny territory’s independence war with
Azerbaijan ended.

Karabakh, which declared independence from Azerbaijan unilaterally in
1992, had no orphanages in Soviet times. The war in which it broke free
from Baku, however, left many children unsupported. Its independence
has not been recognised, with the result that it’s dangerously exposed
and unable to repair the damage from the war.

The home was founded under the name Zangak in 2000 by Anna Asatrian,
a teacher from Stepanakert, to care for children orphaned by the
conflict. Its role though has evolved into looking after the children
who fall out of the bottom of the republic’s fractured society.

"I like it here. They feed us well," said Artur, a blond boy of around
six just back from school.

His cheeky pleasure was characteristic of children at the home,
where the staff members treat their charges warmly and are clearly
adored in return.

"We do not call [this place] a children’s home. We don’t like that
name as if it was some kind of orphanage where the children are
treated badly. This is where we go gladly and, honestly. We really
love the children," said Liya Sarkisian, a nurse at the house.

She has worked there since 2008 when it came under the control of the
ministry for social support, which is charged with helping children
left without one or both parents for whatever reason.

"Sadly, we do not have any statistics about the number of children left
without parents in those years. The war was going on, and people had
no time for numbers. The most important question was just to survive
… Only now have we come to projects and programmes of assistance
for orphans, and are slowly collecting all the information," said
Vilen Bakhshian, the ministry spokesman.

The home now houses 39 children under the age of 18 of whom three
are orphans and the others have either been abandoned or have just
one parent. The youngest of them is Olezhka, who is seven months
old. Her mother, who was young and unmarried, abandoned her and left
for Russia. The child was sent to the children’s home. She will be
adopted by one of the school employees when she turns one, which is
the minimum age for adoption in Karabakh.

The oldest child is Narine, who lacks both parents and will turn 18
this year. Nonna Musaelian, the director of the school, said Narine
will be provided with accommodation under a state programme when
she leaves.

Some 12 such school-leavers have already received accommodation under
the programme.

"We don’t just give them flats. The flat is completed,
furnished. Everything that is necessary for a home has been bought,
so the children are not just going into an empty shell but a house
they can live in. We plan that another 12 orphans will receive homes
by the end of the year," Bakhshian said.

Not all the children in the school are orphans, however. Nine-year-old
Alyona Osipian is from a large family and her six brothers and
sisters also live in the children’s home. Their mother is ill and
cannot support them, and their grandmother also cannot manage such
a large family on her own.

Although the school’s staff members are glad that Karabakh now has
the resources to support such children, who might otherwise be lost
to a life on the streets, they still regret the traditions that have
been lost.

Raya Minasian, a pensioner who lives near the children’s home, told
IWPR how she worries for the kids who live there.

"It breaks my heart every day when I see these little children
running past our house to school and back. I never believed that
a day would come in Karabakh when such institutions for children
would be opened. Even in the times of the Soviet Union we were proud
that Karabakh was the only place where children were not sent into
orphanages," she said.

"This cursed war, it changed everything. Children were left without
parents. It became hard to make ends meet. How many concerns were
left on the shoulders of women, whose husbands were killed? Yes,
it’s shameful that children are sent to these homes, but on the other
hand you can’t blame the people who do so. Some of them are dead, some
were not capable. What can we do? And it’s good that the children live
well there … I even offer them sweets, but they don’t take them."

The nurses agreed with her that it was sad how their country had
changed, but said they did their best to make the children feel they
had a real home, and that the children appreciate that.

"In Karabakh tradition it is not acceptable to give orphans to an
orphanage," said Sarkisian, the nurse. "Parent-less children should
be taken in by their close relatives: aunts, uncles, grandmothers and
grandfathers. Now it has become harder to live, not all families are
provided for, and that is why our young children end up here. However,
it is good for them here. If they go to their families for a day or
two, they phone us, they miss us and want to come back."

Karine Ohanian is a member of IWPR’s Cross Caucasus Journalism Network.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY UNDERMINES ITS OWN PRESTIGE "IN SERVICE" OF GENOCIDAL TURKEY
By Appo Jabarian

USA Armenian Life Magazine
Nov 10, 2009

For quite some time now, Dr. Pamela Steiner, Fellow, Harvard
Humanitarian Initiative and Visiting Scientist, Harvard School of
Public Health under the guise of aiming "to improve the relationship
between Turkish and Armenian populations," has been fast at work to
pacify the Armenians, the victims of the Turkish-executed Armenian
Genocide of 1915-1923, at the expense of the victims.

A few weeks ago, during the period starting August 31, while the
infamous Turkish-dictated Protocols were being actively condemned by
the world Armenian community, Dr. Steiner and the Harvard University
along with Dr. Eileen Babbitt, and unbeknownst to the 99% of Armenians,
were quietly holding a Turkish-Armenian workshop on Sept 18-20. In
reality the so-called "conflict resolution workshop" was nothing more
than a new type of ploy that in reality aimed to promote yet one more
defrauding TARC (Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation Commission).

It’s interesting to know, why the "workshop" organizers, specifically
invited weakling individuals to "represent" the Armenian position
on the issue of the Genocide, land and monetary compensation demands
from Turkey?

Was it perhaps because they had designed to extract self-defeatist
expressions from the few hand-picked Armenian participants?

They agreed that there would be no territorial demands from Turkey

In an October 22, article titled "Turkish-Armenian dialogue initiative
by Harvard University" in the Turkish Today’s Zaman, Ali Aslan wrote:
"The Armenian participants briefly responded to the question as to
what their move would be if Turkey were to recognize the genocide
some day: They agreed that there would be no territorial demands."

Mr. Aslan made sure to lend a helping hand to the workshop organizers
in misrepresenting Armenian public opinion. Therefore, "special
attention was paid to make sure that the participant profile was
diverse."

The workshop organizers also made sure that the perpetrator community
of Turkey and the victim community of the Armenians are unjustly
equated as being "two traumatized sister communities and nations,"
putting both the victims and the perpetrators in one bag. I wonder
what would Dr. Steiner’s reaction be if others would unfairly equate
Hitler’s Nazi Germany and their Jewish victims in one cage as being
"traumatized sister communities and nations?"

While the victim community of Armenians lost its homeland in Western
Armenia and Cilicia, the perpetrator community of genocidal Turkey
confiscated the victims’ homeland along with their real and personal
properties.

Dr. Steiner’s great-grandfather Henry Morgenthau, the US ambassador
to Turkey during the Armenian Genocide, must be turning in his grave.

Amb. Morgenthau served under the beloved U.S. President Woodrow Wilson
(1913-1921) who through a binding international arbitration between
Armenia and Turkey awarded then Turkish-occupied lands in Western
Armenia back to Armenia.

If Drs. Steiner and Babbit and Harvard University’s leadership are
really serious in assisting with a genuine rapprochement between
Armenians and Turkey, then they should not allow themselves to be used
in Turkey’s political ploys to continually defraud the Armenians. But
they should give psychological counseling to the denialists and the
occupationists in Ankara.

Individuals like the self-defeatist Armenians who are mis-characterized
as "representing" the Armenians in the Diaspora and Armenia-Artsakh,
can hardly make up even a tiny percentage of the world Armenians.

By promoting these false Turkish-Armenian "dialogues," Harvard
University and its faculty members are wittingly or unwittingly
undermining the genocide victims, the Armenians’ basic human rights
to justice.

Before being administered any professional "help" for the purpose of
"curing" their psychological trauma, first and foremost, Armenians
need:

– To recover their Turkish-occupied homeland in Western Armenia
and Cilicia;

– To be compensated for the immense real and personal property
losses inflicted on them by Turkey;

– To receive blood money for the one and one half million victims;

– To de-Stalinize and re-Armenianize the forcibly Stalinized,
and now-Azeri-occupied Armenian territories in Nakhitchevan; and
Georgian-occupied Javakh (Akhalkalak);

– To secure and consolidate the liberation of the formerly
Stalinized and until recently Azeri-occupied Armenian Republic of
Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabagh);

– To Assist fellow victims Greek Cypriots liberate Northern Cyprus
from Turkish occupation since 1974; I am surprised that a reputable
university like Harvard undermines its own prestige by allowing itself
to be used "in service" for the unholy objectives of denialist Turkey,
a pariah state.

ARMENIA AND HUNGARY SIGN COOPERATION AGREEMENTS

Tert
Nov 10 2009
Armenia

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan’s official visit to Hungary began
today at the invitation of Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom. Since
Armenia’s independence, this is the first state visit to this Central
European country at the presidential level.

The official meeting ceremony between the presidents took place at
Hungary’s presidential palace. Then Sargsyan and Solyom had a private
talk followed by negotiations with other delegates and dignitaries.

President Solyom stated that his country looks to Armenia as an
important partner with whom it’s ready to strengthen bilateral
and multilateral cooperation in the areas of political dialogue,
trade-economic cooperation, humanitarian and other sectors.

The heads of the two countries expressed confidence that the signed
documents and the Armenian-Hungarian business conference opening in
Budapest will trigger a new spark in establishing business contacts
while simultaneously promoting an increase in trade turnover between
Armenia and Hungary.

During the high-level negotiations, Sargsyan informed his Hungarian
colleague about the establishment process of Armenia-Turkey relations
and the present stage of the Nagorno-Karabakh negotiation process.